Students for Sensible Drug Policy at Wesleyan University is a grassroots network of students working to end the failed War on Drugs, in order to make both Middletown, CT and our world a safer, better educated and more inclusive community. "The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world..." - Global Commission on Drug Policy, 2011
In the US school system, we are often taught that Prohibition ended in the 1930s, with the passage of the 21st Amendment to the US Constitution. The War on Drugs, like the War on Terror, has no clearly defined enemy. As a result, we are all subject to becoming "collateral damage" in the pursuit of platonic ideals which we neither voted nor even acquiesced to. This presents a clear and present danger to the stability of our democracy, our hard-fought gains in racial equality and the very concept of human rights. Prison populations, composed primarily of over-targeted minority groups, have skyrocketed since the 1980s. Moreover, the War on Drugs is an ever-extant, ever-expanding reason for police departments around the globe to spy on their own citizenry, setting up a climate of fear, distrust and marginalization that is wholly at odds with a society founded on ideals of liberty, justice and democracy. Not to mention, this kind of campaign is expensive. The War on Drugs is paid for by cuts to education, healthcare, and other human services. Combined with huge numbers of entirely preventable accidental overdoses and deaths due to prison neglect and poverty, this results in a very real, mounting death toll. We may never know the full body count of this War on us All, but we can work to bring its murderous, misguided reign of terror to a close. Students for Sensible Drug Policy at Wesleyan University is a grassroots network of students working to end this failed War on Drugs, in order to make both Middletown, CT and our world a safer, better educated and more inclusive community.
